


Echoes

by bethagain



Series: Island Life [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Memories, Poor Luke somebody cheer him up please, Rey's kind of in the background, backstory for Kylo Ren, life on Ahch-To, mostly about Luke and Ben, or Skellig Michael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-21 15:44:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6057124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethagain/pseuds/bethagain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the middle of the night on the island. Rey's sound asleep, but Luke's memories won't let him rest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently part 3 in a series. Help, I can't stop! (Blame Mark Hamill, this is all his fault.)
> 
> p.s. I'm probably going to some special hell for the last line.

Luke Skywalker sits on a rock above the sea at a ridiculous hour of the night. There are three planets lined up near the horizon, and overhead, so many stars.

For so many years it was cities, Alliance bases, always moving, so little time to look up. The console lights of an X-wing are bright enough to dim the stars. A couple of times he cut the power--Artoo beeping worriedly behind him--and just sat there and _looked_. But most of the time he was running from planet to planet, running into battle, running to hit a target or knock a TIE fighter off a comrade’s tail. 

Luke tries to remember the last time he saw stars like this and thinks: Tatooine? Thinks: Before.

The air carries a chill, but it’s effortless to pull warmth from the Force around him. He pulls his woolen robe around himself, too, for the comfort of its softness.

Behind him, he can feel Rey sleeping. It’s peaceful and still and sweet. It reminds him of a little boy he used to love like a son. 

Rey, awake, is a shimmer. She is a sheet of durasteel so thin, it hums with vibration in the slightest wind. Rings like a gong if you strike it. 

The little boy was a shimmer, too, but he was the shape of fire. He was flickering flames of red and gold, dimming and rising.

Luke can still recall the impossible fragility of that little boy in his first month of life, the reassurance of quiet embers burning while he slept, of flames leaping up when his eyes opened and he cried.

He remembers the little boy at seven, calling on the ‘vidphone after a nightmare, Han and Leia asleep in the next room and the two of them whispering, talking across kilometers or parsecs about fears and the things that defeat them, until that fire burned bright again.

At thirteen years old, the boy was all energy and passion and stubbornness and laughter. That was the year he learned to build his own shields, to hide the blaze so it wouldn’t be a beacon. 

At fifteen, a young man remained but the flames were gone, hidden behind walls so well-built that nothing at all shone through. Luke missed the crackling brightness, but it was a fair trade for safety.

Except.

With no one to tend the fire, it stuttered and seared. Red and gold flickered into yellow and pale blue. Warmth turned to heat turned to pain. 

And how could he not have known but he didn’t know, he didn’t see, the boy was _safe_ and Luke was _busy_ and those walls were good walls, he had taught the boy to make them. It never occurred to him that the boy would be hurting so much that he’d let someone else in.

Luke Skywalker rests his forehead against his hands, alone on a rock above the sea, at a ridiculous hour of the night. Behind him, he can feel Rey sleeping, and it reminds him of a boy he loves like a son.

“Ben,” he says out loud, as he has hundreds or maybe thousands of times. “Why didn’t you _tell_ me?”


End file.
